Mar 29, 2013

The Invisible Hands is the newest project from Alan Bishop, which finds the Sun City Girl collaborating with a group of Egyptian musicians and delivering eleven sultry, unsettlingly seductive slices of psychedelic troubadour rock on their eponymous debut. At times the results sound like dispatches from some lost vintage Elektra/Asylum folk-rock release made in an alternate universe, while elsewhere he dips into the same poisoned chalice from which Nick Cave drinks with the Bad Seeds. These songs lurch menacingly with both uneasy terror and a swaggering confidence, with his band peppering the tunes with hypnotic Middle Eastern melody lines and lovely arrangements for oud, viola, guitars, percussion, and piano. The album is out now, and if you purchase it from Other Music, you'll be entered to win a hand-sew Invisible Hands pillow! (We'll be running this contest through April 4th, and the winner must be available to pick up the pillow in person at Other Music.)